WD Does Not Expect Ultrabooks to Boost Popularity of SSDs.

Ultrabooks are projected to capture a considerable part of the notebook market and redefine it in many ways. Many analysts as well as Intel Corp. believe that ultrabooks will boost the demand towards solid-state drives considerably thanks to higher performance and lower power consumption compared to hard disk drives. But Western Digital is confident that HDDs will continue to be popular even inside ultrabooks thanks to low price and high capacities.

"I expect ultrabooks to have traditional hard drives, hybrid hard drives and SSDs. [...] We think that the SSD penetration profile will be in very low single digits in a mature ultrabook environment. We see an emerging position for hybrids a little early to develop a view on exactly what percentage of penetration, but we see hybrids as a very compelling alternative on the performance side to solid-state on bang for the buck. We anticipate that in large capacity environments, traditional hard drives will continue to be the compelling solution," said John Coyne, chief executive officer of WD, during the most-recent conference call with financial analysts.

Since ultrabooks are supposed to feature the latest and greatest multimediacapabilities, it is not surprising that many of their owners will prefer high-capacity hard disk drives to fast, but low-capacity SSDs. But there will also be a lot of those, who will like the best options and will demand solid-state storage.

It is noteworthy that makers of hard disk drives intentionally downplay importance of SSDs and motivate their decisions for not entering the market of consumer solid-state storage with low demand from the end-user. Meanwhile, companies who have not traditionally participated in the storage business are growing their presence by offering consumers more and more compelling SSDs ad after-market upgrades.

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Most folks consider Ultrabooks to be expensive eye candy that is lacking in performance.

SSDs are a natural for laptops but the SSD makers need to improve reliability and compatibility. Firmware updates every month or more to correct technical issues because the SSDs were not properly validated is unacceptable to many consumers who vote with their wallet. Lower prices and improved reliablity/compatibility will improve SSD sales dramatically.

AMD's new Ultrathin laptops costing $200-$500 less than Ultrabooks is likely to kill Ultrabook sales as the AMD Trinity powered laptop experience will be superior and cheaper.